Bees and polystyrene

[gavin]

Last weekend I put some polystyrene sheets in at the edges of the occupied area in some of my weaker colonies, and syrup overhead. Just had a look at the one in the garden. It seems to have forgiven me for mucking about with a free-hanging comb but was busy - very audibly - chewing into that nice insulation I gave them. They are almost through parts of the 25mm sheet. They really don't like it!

Are they trying to enlarge the brood nest at a the side where the brood is close to the wall? Plenty of space the other way. Do they remember the size the box used to be, and want to enlarge it again? Would they do this as routine inside a rotten cavity in a tree?

This colony looks as if it might win me a Mars Bar, and besides being uniformly brown it seems tolerant of clumsy beekeepers. Of course that could change as it gets up to full strength, but another nuc this size has indicated that *it* is planning not to stand for any nonsense and the comparison is stark.

I suppose that I'll have to line my dummy boards with plywood after all ....

G.

[Jon]

Hi Gav.
Wrap your polystyrene dummies in gaffer tape or seal it and they wont chew it up.
A piece of 25mm polystyrene between two pieces of plastic (correx) makes a great piece of insulation.
I make the inserts to support the frames in my correx nucs like this.
I cut one piece of plastic about 4 mm higher than the polystyrene to act as a runner.
It gives you automatic insulation at both sides of the nuc.

[Trog]

We use ply dummies (or surplus plastic signboard) either side of the brood frames, then polystyrene to fill the gaps up to the side. They still chew any small bits they can reach but not seriously. Mind you, they're very houseproud; we put small labels on the lid of each feeder as a hygiene measure so that each feeder went back to a specific colony. After 2 days they were chewing the labels off!

[gavin]

I can see that I missed out at election time and may have to actually buy my own Correx! Thanks folks. Do you pack all of the space with polystyrene Trog?

Glad to see you safely installed Jon.

G.

[Stromnessbees]

When I transfer a nuc from a 5 frame nuc-box to a hive I a use ply dummy next to the comb. To fill any empty space on the other side of the wooden dummy I use bits of 1 inch insulation board that were left from some building work: I cleared up some old frames and fitted them with the insulation foam inside, held in place with fishing line.
317

The blue drawing pin ot top makes them easy to recognise in the hive from above.
The bees nibble the foam a bit if they are very short of space but otherwise they work fine. They do prevent them from building comb in the wrong place and they are very light.

Doris